


silence and sound

by Hinterlands



Series: leviathan songs [3]
Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, fun date ideas: parkour at 3 AM, wyman's not a sports lesbian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-07
Updated: 2016-10-07
Packaged: 2018-08-20 00:44:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8230378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinterlands/pseuds/Hinterlands
Summary: The moon hangs high and heavy in the staid night sky, wreathed by insubstantial wisps of cloud, when the door to Wyman’s bedchambers creaks inward.





	

The moon hangs high and heavy in the staid night sky, wreathed by insubstantial wisps of cloud, when the door to Wyman’s bedchambers creaks inward, infinitesimally, silvered strands of light spilling across the cool, seamed stone of the floor, a sheen of it upon their bedclothes, the forearm laid over their eyes in slumber. A heartbeat’s pause; their fingers twitch once, inert, their chest heaving with some great, effortful, dreaming breath, but they remain still, and silent, but for the soft ragged whistle of their breathing.

The door slides further inward, and the hinges squeal their muffled protest, inch by agonizing inch, until the crack is deemed sufficient, and some gangly silhouette comes gliding through, hugging the wall, shrouded in the shadows pooling there, and creeps, cat-footed, to Wyman’s bedside. In the scant light of the moon, the intruder’s expression is inscrutable, a high collar of a rich, dark hue pulled over their mouth, their nose, a scrawl of golden thread spiderwebbing across it; some bulky thing, held close to their chest, is lifted, positioned, and summarily brought down in a ponderous arc.

The sound of impact is surprisingly soft, though Wyman jerks slightly nonetheless as awareness washes over them; they move as if to cry out, but pause, brow scrunched, as their mouth meets cloth, hands already moving to grasp the corners of the object, lift it away, meeting no resistance. A pillow, of all things, and their gaze flickers to the left, and upwards, and meets the intruder’s, and for a moment there is naught but silence to fill the space between them. The corner of Wyman’s mouth twitches, threatens to curve upwards. “Your Highness. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“That,” says Emily Kaldwin, Empress of the Isles, the First of Her Name, her voice muffled by the rudimentary mask, “is payback for two nights ago. Now, get up, and get dressed—loose clothes, something comfortable enough to move in. I want to show you something.”

(With that, the corners of her eyes crinkle in an unseen smile, and she turns, and is gone, leaving Wyman upright in bed, still clutching the pillow in one loose hand. They blink once, then twice, owlishly, into the wash of darkness left behind, before throwing the coverlet aside, and moving, dreamlike, towards the chest of drawers set against the far wall. It's better not to question matters prematurely when the Empress is involved.)  
  
It takes them perhaps all of ten minutes, once they've shaken off the lingering drowsiness, to ignite the wick of a candle and locate adequate vestments; a silken shirt, not so loose as to rustle against their skin as they move, form-fitting trousers, sturdy shoes--not the arched, heeled footwear made stylish by proxy of necessity in Dunwall, to raise oneself above the washed-out muck of the rains and river, but stout, flat-bottomed boots, made for gripping; these, of course, were a gift from Emily herself.  
Door inched open; moonlight, unspooled across the floor of hallway, striating the stone, and it is enough to navigate by; the candle, extinguished, left by their bedside, a furtive glance down either end, and the door clicks softly shut behind them as they step out, head lowered, and a sinuous shadow detaches itself from the wall just a little way ahead, a crooked wrist bidding them _follow, follow._  
  
(Their step is not as pure-practiced light as Emily's, not as effortlessly soundless--small wonder, considering the man, the myth, who trained her--and consequently the muffled _thud_ of their tread blends almost seamlessly with the ceaseless tattoo of their pulse, drumming on and on and on in their ears, until they cannot distinguish between the sounds. There is a fear, there, however distant, as they wind through the halls of Dunwall Tower, that they will be discovered, that there will be an explanation sought that they cannot offer, but Emily is leading them onward, steady and sure, through and out of the building, and some insatiable, damnable curiosity leads them onward also, some deep-seeded wanting to _understand_ the Empress. If this excursion means they may uncover one of the cards she holds so close to her chest--so be it.)

Night, in Dunwall, can best be described as _oily_ ; there's a kind of unctuous sheen to the air, lent by the otherworldly flickering of the spindly whale-oil lampposts hedging the cobblestone streets, and if one should breathe in too suddenly, too sharply, the taste of plague-smoke, a decade past, may linger on the back of the tongue, sickly-sweet, phantasmal.

(Wyman feels, for a fleeting moment, as they have a thousand times since their arrival, as though they could reach out and hook their fingers into the darkness, find substance, feel it crumple beneath the insistent pressure of their palm, and the ragged, stove-in night would fall away, piece by tattered piece, to reveal the verge of the Void; they are dizzy with the smell of whale-oil smoke, with the cold light of the moon, the pinpoint stars, the _vastness_ of it all.)

* * *

 

They travel for perhaps an hour, at an even trot; Emily still leads, and at her insistence they keep to the gloom pooling in cracks and corners and alleyways, bodies slung low, shielded by the odd corner of a building; when the step of the odd night-roving guardsman begins echoing too closely, Emily takes them by the arm, and freezes fast in place, behind cover, and Wyman echoes her, heart pounding somewhere in the back of their throat, hearing only the dim, distant rushing of their own blood; trouble would come, if they were to be discovered, though certainly not trouble on a grand scale, but these exercises introduce an element of danger to the whole affair that is, to a point, intoxicating.  
  
A final avenue; they creep through some high, arched entryway, with the pronged, metallic arms of a Wall of Light still affixed to the brick and mortar of it, jutting inward, though the machine is quiet, now, no blue-tinged sparks leaping and spitting, eager to singe away all evidence of them; still, the most minute of shivers touches Wyman's spine, involuntary. Some ways away and ahead, Emily pauses, sizing up the side of a building, before turning to wave them on.  
"Think you can get up this?" Emily whispers as they creep over to her side, voice distorted by the heavy cloth of her makeshift mask; Wyman furrows their brow, sweeping their gaze over the fixture ahead. The building seems a touch dilapidated, and there are chunks of jutting stone and ragged, weatherworn grooves aplenty, though there is the briefest flutter of unease in the pit of their stomach. What they mean to say is, _I believe that would take a miracle;_ what they feel taking shape in their mouth instead is "I can try."  
  
They are rewarded with the briefest of smiles, the corners of Emily's eyes crinkling at the edges, as she nods. "Let me go first--I can pull you up." With that, she moves forward, sliding the toe of her boot into a groove, The motions are quick, and smooth, and repetitive, the catch-and-release, the pull of muscle, and before long Emily is hauling herself over the edge of the low rooftop, and it is Wyman's turn; hesitantly, they shift forward, attempting to emulate her earlier stance, gripping the protruding stones above, leg raised, the toe of their boot slid firmly into the same groove.  
  
(It takes considerably more time for them to clamber their way up the wall, inch by agonizing inch, given that occasionally their grip would falter, their foothold give, and by the end Wyman is panting, if surreptitiously, and a definite--if faint--soreness is taking shape between their shoulderblades; Emily, true to her word, reached down to snag their hand as soon as they were within reach, hauling up and back, Wyman pushing off the wall, and soon enough they're crouched beside her on the slanted surface of the rooftops, a fine sheen of sweat glistening upon their forehead. Emily's hands are rough with callus, and wonderfully, humanly warm, and the ghost of the touch lingers for some minutes afterwards, not unpleasantly.)  
  
"What is it you wanted to show me?" They ask, their voice hushed, in deference to the silence lain thick over all; Emily straightens, and raises her head, and says, with a theatrical, sweeping gesture;"Dunwall."  
  
A heartbeat's pause. "I've...seen Dunwall," they say, almost cautiously, and Emily rolls her eyes, exhaling through her nose. "One facet of Dunwall," she replies. "Dunwall in daylight, from the ground. I'm going to show you a...different angle, let's say."  
"A different angle," Wyman repeats, with a slight sinking feeling, and Emily reaches over, squeezes their arm reassuringly. "My _favorite_ angle." With that, she turns to survey the buildings adjacent to their perch, hands fisted against her hips, brows drawn down in evident concentration, before she says, slowly, consideringly, "You can make this jump, right?"  
  
A contemplative pause; the gaps between the buildings here are not so wide--mere inches, crowded close enough that one could stretch a leg further out and reach a neighboring roof with one foot still firmly planted upon the first, and the drop itself is more _forgiving_ than it could be, enough to send an unpleasant jolt up the legs into the trunk of the body, but perhaps not enough to snap bone. "Yes," they say, hoping against hope that they sound more confident than they feel, and Emily smiles again, slow and private, and hops the gap with ease.  
  
Wyman follows, and notes with some relief that they clear the gap with several inches to spare; they fall into a rhythm, crouching low to peer over the rims of rooftops at the odd, straggling guardsmen below before making the jump to each successive rooftop, and Wyman finds that the tension is leaching from them, minute by minute, leap by leap; opportunities to be _unrestrained_ are few and far between in the shallow, savage shoal that Dunwall's nobility basks in, and it is enough that they can feel attuned with their body here, feel the catch and pull and burn of muscle, the weight of gravity pulling them down to slate and slant and stone. And they find that Emily, in some strange way, was right—the city seems a new place from above, awash in moonlight, all glint and glimmer and unforgiving angles.  
  
(This, it seems, is Emily's place; long strides and effortless motion carrying her from roof to roof in what appears to be a wide circuit back towards the looming silhouette of the tower, still skirting the shadows coalescing around the odd smokestack, the angular windowframes opening into derelict apartments below; what can be seen of her face is flushed, windburnt, and she appears to be grinning beneath her high cloth collar, chest heaving with effortful breaths, and Wyman feels a hot flush begin to creep up the pillar of their throat, their breathing heavy and labored, sweat running in rivulets down their forehead, their neck.)  
  
Eventually, though, the houses begin to space out, the gaps widening minutely, inch by inch, until they can actually glimpse the width of an alley running between them. They pause, doubled over, hands resting upon knees, breaths coming in short, shallow _whoofs_ , and Emily sets a hand against their back, rubbing in slow circles, concern evident in her voice. "If you need to stop--”  
  
“Only for a moment,” Wyman gasps. Some strange upwelling of _determination_ , coalescing in the cavity of their chest; they can see this endeavor through, surely. A heartbeat longer before they straighten, wiping at their forehead with the back of one hand. “Ready,” they say, perhaps more hoarsely than they mean to, but Emily nods nonetheless, bounces on her heels, swiveling to gauge the distance.

A few steps backwards; she takes the gap at a run, even and sure, picking up speed—and just as she reaches the end of the rooftop she leaps, and for an infinite heartbeat she is frozen in that moment, hair blown back, arms raised, suspended above the solidity and surety of the earth, reveling in the sheer, mad, unholy joy of tempting fate so brazenly, before her feet meet the surface of the next roof, hard—she skids, just slightly, stumbles forward, before turning to Wyman with hands raised in victory.  
  
What Wyman wants to say is, _I think I was overestimating my ability to do this, terribly;_ what Wyman wants to say is; _I’ve never done anything much more rigorous than fencing before and I’m having some second thoughts;_ what Wyman wants to ask is; _just what in the Outsider’s name has Corvo been teaching you?_  
  
What Wyman thinks is; _if she can do it, so can I,_ and somehow their feet are carrying them forward—not at a brisk run but a sprint, boots thudding down the center of the rooftop, and as they reach the edge they send a wordless prayer spiraling off in the vague direction of the Void and _leap_.  
For one sickening moment it feels as though they’ve leapt short, before their feet just barely strikes the edge of the rooftop and the world tilts backwards as gravity curls its incorporeal fingers into the collar of their shirt and yanks, their arms pinwheeling as the plunge begins—  
—A slender, solid, firm hand wrapped around their wrist, a counterbalance, yanking them forward, and Wyman can’t help but stumble into Emily’s chest as she wraps one sure arm around them, and as the frantic tattoo of their heartbeat fades, they are vaguely aware of her murmuring words of admiration, of congratulation, of concern, and Wyman assures her, tongue thick in their suddenly all-too-dry mouth, that _yes, I’m fine, and thank you for sparing the guards the sight of my splattered body; it would have made a horrid scene._

“You did well,” Emily says, softly, and as Wyman—reluctantly, and slowly—pulls away to catch their breath properly, she slowly slinks from view. When Wyman straightens again, she is gone, and the rooftop is barren; a prickle of panic, somewhere down deep.  
  
“Emily?”  
  
“Down here.” Wyman peers over the edge of the roof, breaths coming harsh and labored, catching a glimpse of Emily, huddled in the shadows lining the front of the building. “You can climb down,” she continues, eyes gleaming in the darkness. “I think that was enough for today.”

Right--climb down. Leg it back to Dunwall Tower before sunrise. A sound, solid plan. Except, as Wyman moves to acquiesce, for one minute detail, and that is that a sudden paroxysm of fear has made their fingers as solid and immovable as steel, and they are now a single slip away from dangling off the edge of the roof. “ _Emily_ ,” they say again, more urgently.  
  
“What? Are you coming down?”  
  
“I…can’t,” they admit, softly. That Emily’s high, arched brows are currently rising into her hairline is indisputable.  
  
“Wyman, my love,” she says, an edge of incredulity to her voice. “You just leaped clear across an alleyway.”  
  
“ _Down_ ,” Wyman replies, with great gravity, “is different.”  
  
A moment’s pause, as Emily chews this over; eventually, her voice floats up from below, hushed in the faintly-illuminated darkness. “Here—drop down. It isn’t so steep. I’ll catch you,” she adds, after a brief hesitation on Wyman’s part, and they exhale, slowly and softly, and mutter the most profane of curses towards the Black-Eyed Bastard, and loosen their fingers, and plunge.  
  
They aren’t quite certain how far they fall—in the moment, it feels like a thousand yards, an infinite tumble into the inky dark, but regardless: impact, Emily’s body solid beneath them, against them, and they feel her stagger, one step, two steps, feel the subtle play of lean muscle in her arms, and, dizzied, they give vent to the faintest of appreciative hums, a rush of heat suffusing their face.  
  
Slow rotation in the circle of Emily’s arms, and they reach up, hooking their fingers into the high cloth collar obscuring her mouth and nose, and yank, and before Emily can respond they’re surging forward to press a kiss to her parted lips, almost bruising, and the tension seems to rush out of her all at once; she yields, readily, opens to them, and they mutter, between breathless kisses, “We are _not_ doing that again.”  
  
“I thought you showed promise,” Emily says, the corner of her mouth twitching, her cheeks rosy, her eyes glimmering with amusement, suffused with warmth.  
  
What Wyman thinks is; _we should go, before we’re discovered; thank you for letting me in; I love you, you mad, brilliant fool—_  
  
—and what Wyman does is kiss her again, half-hidden in shadow, beneath the cold light of the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Assorted notes:
> 
> \--I pre-ordered The Corroded Man and subsequently devoured it in the span of five hours; it's a fun tie-in, and Emily and Wyman have some noteworthy Gay Moments throughout.
> 
> \--I picture Wyman (who is officially "gender-neutral") as a nonbinary lesbian, because I love projecting.
> 
> \-- This is dedicated to my good friends Jenny and Mimi (lesbianemilykaldwin and legmaggedon on tumblr, respectively), who got me into Dishonored in the first place; special mention goes to Mimi's Wyman design, which can be viewed [here,](http://legmageddon.tumblr.com/post/150963392341/i-saw-this-shirt-everywhere-for-the-past-couple) and which I had in mind throughout writing this, and also whenever I think of Wyman in general.
> 
> \--Title from You & I by One Direction, which was suggested by the light of my life, and my number-one source of encouragement, rory agenthill. Love you dearly and deeply, bro.


End file.
